Peter Liversidge
For They Know Not What They Do
12 May - 23 June, 2007

One of the more anarchic highlights of last summer's Edinburgh Art Festival was Peter Liversidge's Festival Proposals - a multifarious smorgasbord of happenings and performances that Liversidge inflicted on the city in the name of conceptual art. He was, according to the press:

"The Lord of misrule at a feast of fools" [The Scotsman 01/08/2006]

and: [it was ] "…the closest yet that this Festival has come to its original aim of having artists interact with the city. It is the art of daring to dream.
The art of possibility. The art of making us see beyond the everyday." [Scotland on Sunday 06/08/2006]

The fall-out from last summer continues with plans currently afoot to realize proposal no. 84 - the twinning of Edinburgh with the town of Glasgow, Montana. The letters have been sent and the signs are being made, though inexplicably the city leaders either here or in the US have yet to express their support...

Beyond the merry mayhem of these ideas Peter Liversidge is a serious and diverse artist. He has made work in almost every conceivable medium including drawing, performance, installation, painting, sculpture, intervention, artist books and multiples. Whilst the forms his art takes are disparate, each embodies his enduring fascination with ideas and the bounds of our imagination, exploring the gulf that opens between expectation and reality. Humour and a kind of playfulness permeate much of his work, and this charming hook pulls its audience into an uncertain world, where fundamental questions are being quietly asked.

Liversidge has made exhibitions and performances at museums and galleries worldwide and this summer he will be one of 20 artists given a one-person exhibition in Art Statements at the hugely prestigious ART BASEL 38 [13-17 June 2007].

Concurrently, we will also present our first gallery-based exhibition of his work in Edinburgh, including paintings and installations relating to his enduring fascination with the North Montana Plains, and a large group of works on paper and sculptures which offer a sideways look at our perceptions of the world of advertising logos and objects of retail desire. Towards the end of the exhibition a wall of photographs electronically relayed from Switzerland will also document Liversidge's daily performances from Basel as his Fair Proposals begin their assault on that city.

Peter Liversidge (b. 1973) lives and works in London. His work is held in collections including the British Council, Government Art Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, Tate Gallery Archive and the Czech Museum of Fine Art, Prague.

A 144pp book Fair Proposals will be published for the Basel Art Fair illustrating all 135 proposals.